NY Rangers' Big Three of Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi first must return to form to right Blueshirts' slumping ship

Alain Vigneault says Marc Staal has to make better decisions, like he has most of his career.

A laundry list of Rangers is responsible for the team’s 1-4-1 funk their last six games, which is more reflective of their disconnected game than the 16-3-2 record they had built prior. But no improvement will resolve this team’s issues until Alain Vigneault gets more out of his Big Three on defense.

Captain Ryan McDonagh and alternate captains Dan Girardi and Marc Staal formed the backbone with Henrik Lundqvist of teams that reached three Eastern Conference finals and one Cup Final the last four years.

Perhaps the heavy amount of hockey has taken a toll. McDonagh is coming off a broken foot from last spring, while Girardi and Staal had offseason ankle surgeries. Nevertheless, as the Rangers (17-7-3, 37 points) host the Ottawa Senators (13-7-5, 31 points, prior to Saturday’s visit to Brooklyn) on Sunday night at the Garden, they are still waiting for the core members of their foundation to be themselves – regardless of the offseason ailments.

“I would say that in October (lingering injury effects) was a definite possibility,” Vigneault said after Saturday afternoon’s hard practice in Greenburgh. “Now we’re in the beginning of December. We should have turned the corner here. We’ve got to turn the corner.”

Vigneault said his Big Three will “get better” but are “very conscious” of their struggles. Thursday night, Kevin Hayes’ apparent turnover before Matt Duchene’s goal in a 2-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche actually was Staal’s fault, since he “has got no business giving (Hayes) the puck there,” the coach said.

“I mean, how many times do you see Marc Staal (make) a decision at the blue line like he makes there where it costs a goal? Very rarely,” Vigneault said. “He knows they’re standing up, there’s no room, you’ve gotta get it behind them. I know Marc knows the right play. I know he’s done it many times before. I’m confident the next time it happens that the right play will occur.”

Vigneault said he thinks McDonagh is “on the right track as far as skating with the puck and making better decisions with it, but McDonagh said he’s still not satisfied with his own game.

“I mean it’s kind of like our team, up and down, not as consistent as you’d want as a player,” McDonagh said. “I’m doing a lot of good things and then there are some you want back, different plays where you wish you did it a little bit better. Obviously we need everybody to pick each other up. You can’t go out there and do it yourself so you’ve got to rely on everybody playing well and playing the way we need to be in order to help everybody.”

Of the team’s overall execution, McDonagh stressed: “There’s no small plays … We definitely believe in how good we are as a group. It’s just a matter of us wanting to get there so badly, you’ve got to do the little things to give ourselves a chance.”

Vigneault sees Ryan McDonagh (r.) on the upswing but still needs way more from Dan Girardi.

HUGE LINE CHANGES MAY BE IN STORE FOR SUNDAY NIGHT’S GAME VS. OTTAWA

Vigneault shook up his forward lines big time for Saturday’s practice, including a move of Kevin Hayes to the left wing of Derick Brassard and Mats Zuccarello, a new line of Chris Kreider with Oscar Lindberg and Rick Nash. See the bottom of this post for the full projected lineup. Vigneault said he is not positive how he will start Sunday night’s game against the Senators at the Garden.

“This is just a look I wanted to see today,” the coach said. “I’m not 100% sure we’re gonna go this way tomorrow.”

CALL-UPS COMING?

Vigenault said the Rangers likely will call up a seventh defenseman for next week’s three-city trip through Western Canada, but the player “might not come with us Monday but might meet us in Van(couver) Tuesday or Wednesday” to save money, since the Rangers are close to the salary cap ceiling … Vigneault said he and GM Jeff Gorton also will resolve after Sunday’s game how to proceed with extra forwards for the road trip. The Rangers have flexibility to place Stepan on long-term injury reserve to create extra room to accommodate new players, but they haven’t taken advantage of that provision yet.

VIGNEAULT’S FULL QUOTE ON THE DEFENSE

Here was Vigneault’s full answer Saturday to the question about whether his team needs its top defensemen to improve more than anything else: “I firmly believe that, I think Ryan’s on the right track as far as skating with the puck and making better decisions with it. I do think Marc and Dan and Boyler can be a lot better than they’ve shown us. I think Keith is coming along – there will always be moments in games where Keith is going to make a low-percentage play that could be high reward. But for the most part, I’ve really liked his last three or four games. Since the Boston game there he’s been more effective. And Dylan’s a young D going through the process. But our transition, our breakouts, they start with Marc, they start with Dan, they start with Boyler, and we need those guys to handle the puck better there’s no doubt.”

It’s staggering that Vigneault – who prioritizes high-percentage decisions and puck movement to generate and feed his team’s speed – has accepted that Yandle is guaranteed to make at least potentially costly, low-percentage play per game. It should be pointed out, as Vigneault said, that Yandle without a doubt has played much better lately. Still, the defensive zone puck management problems persist. They popped up again in the first period of Thursday’s 2-1 loss to Colorado, and it’s not like Yandle is disregarding them. He cares, and on Saturday afternoon, he slammed his stick to the ice in tomahawk fashion on the ice after losing the puck.

Again, no matter how Yandle is playing, the Rangers’ greatest need is for their top three/four defensemen to be better with the puck. But a big part of this team’s problem is the fact that they’ve had several players make one or two mistakes here, and complacency addressing those issues makes it worse as a group, and suddenly the Rangers are a team that manages the puck poorly. That’s how it happens – one poor decision at a time.

A team that makes bad decisions with the puck is a team that has several individuals making one bad decision at a time. They’re all important to correct.

McDonagh on the pulse of the team: “It hasn’t gone well as far as winning games like it was at the beginning of the year. (We’re working) to try and win a game whether it be pretty or not. So we’re trying to find ways to be more in sync, be more creative offensively and more importantly just execute when we have an offensive look or we need to make a defensive play or a breakout, just be sharper in our execution.”